Madhouse edited by Urmilla Deshpande & Bakul Desai
Westland. Pages: xx+335. Price: Rs. 295/-
Barring exceptions, student days (especially for ex-hostellers) are salad days for those of us who have entered or crossed the middle-age. One looks back nostalgically at the various incidents that were neither pleasant nor funny when one was actually experiencing them; but, now, one can afford to look at the funny side of even rather nasty episodes. This book is a collection of vignettes as narrated by alumnae of IIT Bombay, who happened to be inmates (the term is universally disliked for its unpleasant connotations) of Hostel number 4, or H4. These inmates included a dog, a cat and pigeons that added color and spice to the life and times of various students.
A number of interesting characters people the pages of this volume. One of them had fortuitously acquired a white horse – sickly and abandoned, by some accounts – and had made it his regular means of conveyance to and fro the classes. Another was enterprising enough to start selling electronic calculators and homemade shampoo to fellow hostellers. But his enterprise failed because the calculators began to malfunction within days of their sale. There are rib-tickling and even unnerving narratives of adventures and misadventures, unwittingly dealing with an underworld don to hire an elephant, harmless ragging and not-so-harmless gulling. Even if you are not an IITian and had never been a hostel inmate you are going to love this collection of comic cameos.
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